{"id":9067,"date":"2012-05-16T11:11:31","date_gmt":"2012-05-16T15:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9067"},"modified":"2012-05-16T12:02:54","modified_gmt":"2012-05-16T16:02:54","slug":"pitts-hit-for-letter-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=9067","title":{"rendered":"Pitts hit for letter error"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cites dead Arafat, comatose Sharon as part of Middle East solution; staff apologizes for error<\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

By Mike McGann<\/strong>, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-16)<\/p><\/div>\n

A local Congressman is taking hits for having a decidedly retro take on Middle East politics in a letter sent to a constituent last month.<\/p>\n

According to Ian Rhodewalt, writer for the Middle East Web news site MondoWeiss<\/a>, U.S. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-16) responded to a letter from his father, a resident of the 16th Congressional District and referenced the late Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasir Arafat and former Israeli prime minister Arial Sharon.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy father recently received a form letter response from Joe Pitts,\u201d Rhodewalt wrote on his site. \u201cA year ago, after visiting me in Ramallah, my father contacted Pitts\u2019 office, expressing his opposition to House Resolution 268, a one-sided resolution that condemned Palestinians and reaffirmed the US \u201ccommitment to a negotiated settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rhodewalt, who currently lives in Ramala, said he and his father were a little shocked by the letter sent in response which contained this passage:<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the global war against terrorism, it is now incumbent on Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasir Arafat to clamp down on Palestinian extremists that have perpetuated violence and to restart a peace process that has collapsed.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arafat has been dead since 2004 and Sharon has been in a coma since 2006.<\/p>\n

Pitts, of East Marlborough, is taking hits for the mistake, but his staff moved quickly Wednesday to apologize and said it was a clerical mistake \u2014 actually, two mistakes \u2014 in short, an old form letter was used to reply in error a year late.<\/p>\n

“Congressman Pitts responds to tens of thousands of constituent inquiries a year,\u201d said Pitts\u2018 spokesman Andrew Wilmer.\u00a0\u201cBecause it is impossible to draft a unique reply to each inquiry, language is often reused for similar responses. In this case, a double mistake was made. Language that should have been archived was included in a draft response. The response was then pulled from the queue because of the error, and then mistakenly sent almost a year later.\u201d<\/p>\n

While it doesn’t excuse the mistake, Wilmer said, the volume of mail Pitts’ office must respond to can cause errors.<\/p>\n

\u201cResponding to tens of thousands of letters a year is a complicated process,\u201d Wilmer said. \u201cMistakes are both few and rare, but do sometimes occur. This one was particularly embarrassing. We have apologized to the constituent and are reviewing our internal process to make sure this sort of thing can’t happen again.”<\/p>\n

Democrat Aryanna Strader, of Kennett Square, running against Pitts in the fall election, chimed in an email to her supporters.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing this completely out of touch with such a major foreign policy matter is inexcusable,\u201d Strader wrote in an email to supporters this week, seeking to raise money from the issue. \u201cIf we are ever going to change Congress, we must change who we send there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strader issued a further statement, Wednesday:<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile mistakes do happen, it is troubling to think that our congressman is out of touch to such a degree,\u201d she said.\u00a0 \u201cWhether Congressman Pitts is unaware of foreign leaders or he is blaming a staff member for a clerical error, the fact is that constituents depend upon their elected officials to provide them with timely and accurate information.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cites dead Arafat, comatose Sharon as part of Middle East solution; staff apologizes for error By Mike McGann, Editor, UnionvilleTimes.com A local Congressman is taking hits for having a decidedly retro take on Middle East politics in a letter sent to a constituent last month. According to Ian Rhodewalt, writer for the Middle East Web […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9069,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,7],"tags":[1289,1290,1291,1292,1288],"class_list":["post-9067","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-featured","tag-israel","tag-joe-pitts","tag-letter","tag-middle-east","tag-plo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9067"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9067\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9067"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9067"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9067"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}